, 1887-12-07
THE UNKNOWN GOD.
A Discourse by E. M. Wheelook to
the Unitarian Society of Spo-
kana Ealla. Wash. Ter.

The city Of Athens, eighteen cen.
turics ago. was the glorious center OF
the higher culture of the world. There
the foremost minds OF the race con
cerned themselves with the profound.
est problems Of the universe. The
purest intellect has its highest express
sion in Plato, who shines from age to
age over the philosophic world like II
sun that never sets. Yet the outcome
of all this vast and lofty speculation
on the Divine Being, extending
through the centuries from Orpheus to
Socrates, was the consciousness of ig-
nornnce. The human mind, then ut
its clearest and strongest, roamed
through all the universe in its effort
to find out God and returned batiled
and weary tC inscrihe as II last result
upon its altar, "To the Unknown
God.'
For mental research, by its very
action. step by step rs it advances,
pushes the causes Of causes
further and further back from
human ken, so that the baflled
intellect is compelled To confess at last
we cannot reach it. When you speak
of n first cause to reason, reason re-
plies thatit it cannot think Of any cause,
without asking what CAUSED that
cause. How emphatic is the old He.
brew scripture ON this point. "Canst
thou by searching find out God? Canst
thou find out the Almighty to pcrIoc.
ton? Behold lgo forward, but lie is
not there aud backward, but | cannot
perceive Him on the left hand, where
He doth work but cannot behold Him
lie hid,ih himself on the night hand,
that cannot see Him? He Is high
as heaven, what Canst thou duY Deep
er than shcOl what cunst thou know?
Thy way Is in the sea, and Thy path l.
in the great waters, and Thy footsteps
are not known. No man hath seen
God at any time. Eye hath not seen,
nor cnr heard, The Kingdom oi
heaven cumcth not with observations
The intellect may seek after, but
cannot find God. II can know Of
Him; it can know about Him; it can
mark His impress and follow his foot.
steps--lIinseli it can never reach.
The understanding can never discover
Him. The Isis still refuses to unvcil.
There is no ratio discovered of finite to
Infinite. We can make no siulitude.
We have no t.rm in our logic that eau
define il. Nature does not reveal, she
conceals God, When the understand.
ing looks upon the material uni.
verse, it secs uuly matter in notion;
spirit is hidden behind the veil of nat
tural appearance. The understanding
finds no God in nature, but only
Phenomena and their orderly success
sion. Observation will never dis
cover, nor reasoning prove him.
The Divine methods We can trace ; the
Divine mind we are unable to explore
Knowledge cannot probe so deeply, or
toe distributed so far, that the abyss
between the created and the Creator
has ever he bridged. Across that
chusm human thought can throw
no pontOon. The TheOs can never
cease to- be the inscrutable cause.
There must ever be II point at which
int lelligence haits, feeling its inability
tocXplnin God. The more we know
the more we feel how little we know.
The sages of Greece had reached the
conception of the finally inscrutablc,
and bowed before it,. They had
learned that the Infinite refuses to tie
comprised by any human definition.
Al this moment OF it's experience,
the proud philosophy of Athens en-
countered with the new and f"rvid
faith which, starting from Jerusalem,
had begun to shake and disturb the
the old conclusions Of the world. The
audience were the cultured followers Of
the various Athcncan schuols, versed
insubtle dialectics, who gathered round
the strange teacher; some saying
-. l.. L. Il
O.hers, "He seemolh to he II
setter forth of strange gods" be-
cause He preached OF Jesus and the
resurrection. Paul made his argu'
ment Al noble one. One of the court
convinced, II woman named Damaris,
and others believed, but no signal tri'
umph Of truth resulted. Earnest
Paul goes his way through the cities
of Asia Minor, tcnt,naking and preach
ing. The Athenians go their way to
the worship of the unknown. The
moral Of that high debate is yet fresh
and vital to us.
After ages of doubt, speculation, in
quiry, and experience, the mind OF
Greece had reached to the knowledge
of ignorance. Instead of gaining an
answer, they found with each advance
the problem to be more complex, and
less capable of answer. They tried
to reach forth that they might touch
an end Instead they but touched a
beginning; they would have made ii
anding, but drifted far out on an oren
sea. High minds of good intent pressed
on in this endless quest. and
spread sails upon that shoreless sea,
Beyond the statement of Socrates,
above the fine dreams of Plato, lies the
unreached goal OF aspiration and of
mystery. Speculation starting on a
thousand paths, searching through
all the creation, forever seeking, ends
ms it began-with the unknown. The
highest philosophic Thought reaches NJ
last the inpenertnble walls of the FL